BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS

'Have sex, do drugs,' speaker tells students

'Men with men, women and women, whatever combination you would like'

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

A guest speaker at an assembly at Boulder High School in Colorado has told students as young as 14 to go have sex and use drugs, prompting school officials to say they will investigate.

The instructions came from Joel Becker, an associate clinical professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles.

“I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately,” Becker said during his appearance at the school as part of a recent panel sponsored by the University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs.

“Why I am going to take that position is because you are going to do it anyway,” he continued. “I think as a psychologist and health educator, it is more important to educate you in a direction that you might actually stick to. So, I am going to stay mostly on with the sex side because that is the area I know more about. I want to encourage you to all have healthy, sexual behavior.”

WND also has reported on similar assemblies that have been used by schools to promote homosexuality, including one where parents were banned from the event, and a second where WND reported school officials ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a “gay” indoctrination seminar after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.

The Boulder school review promise came from board members who were confronted by Boulder High sophomore Daphne White and her mother, Priscilla White, with their complaint about the event.

Priscilla White told board members it’s inappropriate for such a message to be delivered by a public school. She was reading excerpts of the presentation to the board when board President Helayne Jones told her to stop, because the language was inappropriate.

“The panel discussion was a completely irresponsible and dangerous invitation to Boulder High students to have sex and take drugs,” her daughter, Daphne, told the board.

No student should have been forced to be at that panel discussion, incoming Boulder Valley Supt. Chris King agreed.

The panel included Becker; Andree Gerhardt, a community engagement leader with Ernst & Young; Antonio Sacre, an LA-based performing artist, and Sanho Tree, of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

They were assembled for the discussion as part of the university’s Conference on World Affairs, which has been described as a forum for anything.

Conference leaders issued a statement, signed by conference director Jim Palmer and others, saying the panel members talked “candidly and sensibly to the high school audience, providing cautionary information about alcohol consumption, drugs, sexual issues and teens.”

The sophomore, Daphne, had been required to attend the panel called “STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs,” and accused panel members of presenting one-sided views and discrediting abstinence.

The White family said the conference statement wasn’t even accurate.

“The panelists irresponsibly advised Boulder High students to have sex and use drugs,” the family responded. “Teenage abstinence was dismissed as an unwise choice and indicative of religious hang-ups.”

“It may be true that the Conference on World Affairs generally ‘fosters awareness of local, national and global citizenship and celebrates intellectual discussion and excellence.’ It did not in this case,” the family continued. “As Daphne suggested at the [recent] school board meeting, Boulder High School, the school district and the CWA should host an assembly at Boulder High for the student body. Hopefully the principal, the deputy superintendent, the board president and the director of the CWA would use the opportunity to offer Boulder High students some sound advice that is more consistent with what teens should hear from adults. They need to do it quickly, graduation is June 2.”

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said Boulder already is known as a “far left” town.

He played a recording of an “unidentified male” saying: “We all experiment. It’s very natural for young people to experiment with same sex relationships. When you are 13, 12, 13, 14 certainly probably one of the most appropriate sexual behaviors would be masturbation. Even today, there are psychiatrists who will do sessions under the influence of ecstasy. If I had some maybe I’d do it with someone, but you know.”

The transcript obtained by WND showed those comments also were from Becker.

Dan Caplis, a lawyer and radio talk-show host on KHOW Radio, said the principal should have been fired, but wasn’t.

“We had the president of the school board on, as well as the head of the school district. And they just kept dodging us. Finally, we pinned them down and we said don’t you agree this was harmful, this was dangerous? Finally, they agreed to that,” Caplis reported.

“These experts came in to undermine and contradict everything most parents at that school are trying to teach their kids about sex and drugs. And I believe that a lot of those parents are ready to fight back. But we’ll find out in the next few days,” Caplis said.

Added Louise Benson, on another: “The attitude towards the Whites and the wildly left-wing agenda at BHS as represented by the amazing thinking that a panel encouraging sex and drugs would be just fine is one reason families are fleeing public schools.

“The culture wars really are in full swing in schools,” she said.

Zelda, on her “Sleeping Ugly” blog, said parents need to be informed and candid on issues with their children. Addressing the panelists, she wrote, “You, on the other hand, could be a pervert who gets his jollies by talking about sex with minors. And another of my responsibilities as a parent is to make sure you don’t have access to my kids until I know for sure you don’t have an ulterior motive.”

Her conclusion? “Strike 7,867,960,071 against public education.”

The conference was begun in 1948 to discuss international affairs, but has expanded to become a conference, as it describes itself, on “Everything Conceivable.”